Five months later, Beck's ratings haven't improved any. In October he averaged 2,095,000 total viewers, down 24% from about 2.7 million in October 2009, according to Nielsen.

He still crushes his competitors in the 5 p.m. time slot. But one of them, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, saw his ratings improve 8% in October year over year, up to 576,000 from 543,000. CNN's Wolf Blitzer saw a considerable drop in his audience, though he still beat Matthews, with 602,000 total viewers down from 715,000 a year earlier.

We have an email out to Beck's rep and will update if he offers a comment.